Aug 27, 2009

Heathers: The TV Show

Coming soon to a television near you, Heathers. "Well f*ck me gently with a chainsaw."

If you haven't seen or heard of Michael Lehmann and Daniel Waters’ 1989 cult satire Heathers, I wouldn't be too surprised. However, it is the film that launched the careers of Winona Ryder, Christian Slater and Shannon Doherty. It also praised teenage suicide (don't do it!), witty dialog among teenagers, strip croquet, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and probably spawned the Trench coat Mafia - which could easily connect the dots to Columbine and ever other copycat school shooting and bombing we read about on a semi-weekly basis.

Let's put that on Television!

It seems this is a new development, since the property has been in sequel purgatory - the moive surpassed expectations on the rental circuit, which shows that it's popular and profitable... but not enough for a sequel. But it may finally find an afterlife on television.

The story is that Fox and Sony Pictures TV are teaming up to resuscitate the show, which is being written by Mark Rizzo and Sex and the City scribe Jenny Bicks, according to Variety. Rizzo and Bicks, meanwhile, are resuscitating its main characters: Veronica Sawyer and J.D., respectively played by Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. Uh hold on, didn't Jimmy Dean blow himself up, guys?

Question, hasn't Heathers been played out? I mean, wasn't it meant to be a dark take on all those John Hughes white suburban how-to-dress and act in the 80's instructional films? A black comedy, if you will. It was copied with Slater's Pump up the Volume all the way to the Craft, Donny Darko, and Mean Girls, and those are just a couple off the top of my head. Hell, there are even hints of Heathers in Napoleon Dynamite! Heathers kind of created a whole sub-genre of angsty anti-clique High School films. And on television, it’s been beaten to the marketplace by Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Beverly Hills 90210, whose star Shannon Doherty started out asa f*ckin' Heather! And that was over two decades ago!

Also, Heathers is all about killing cliques by way of convoluted suicide-things. Not exactly what OXY Medicated pads wants to be sponsoring. Maybe Corn Nuts...

So, the question is, why? And why now? The cult purists will say, "not over my dead gay son." Everyone else will just say, "Eskimo. What ever will be will be."